WESTWOOD >> Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday expanded on her criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he is threatening stability in the region and explained why she had earlier compared his tactics to Adolf Hitler’s.

Speaking at UCLA, the former first lady and U.S. senator said the Russian leader has ambitions to expand Russia’s reach.

“As for President Putin, I know we are dealing with a tough guy with a thin skin,” Clinton said during an afternoon lecture. “I’ve had a lot of experience, well, not only with him but with people like that.

“I know that his political vision is a Greater Russia, and I said when I was still secretary that his goal is to re-Sovietize Russia’s periphery.”

On Tuesday, Clinton delivered remarks in Long Beach comparing some of Putin’s actions to Hitler’s in the 1930s during the buildup to World War II. She said Putin’s claim that the recent Russian troop incursion into Ukraine is to protect minority Russians there is an echo of Hitler’s claims about using military action to protect ethnic Germans outside Germany. Putin also has been on a campaign, she said, to expand the number of Russian citizens in other countries by giving passports to those with Russian connections, particularly in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

She said Wednesday that her comments were meant as a warning about a tactic that had been used before.

“That is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere,” Clinton said in a question-and-answer session after her lecture.

“I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective. I’m not making a comparison, certainly, but I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before.”

Clinton said Wednesday that her concern was also fueled by Russia’s past actions, when the Russian army invaded the nation of Georgia in 2008 and annexed two parts of the smaller country.

“So we know that despite best efforts at diplomacy after the fact, despite agreements that were entered into between the Russians, Europe, the United States and the Bush administration, the Russians have not left those places that they seized,” she said.

The key to resolving the current crisis, she added, is Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, although she faces quite a balancing act since her country is largely dependent on Russian gas.

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Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, made a similar historical parallel Tuesday, saying that the U.S. and Europe should not to allow Russia to set a precedent in Ukraine that could lead to Russian incursions into other neighboring countries.

“If Vladimir Putin gets away with saying he’s defending the rights of Russian-speaking peoples, that is the same thing — excuse — that Hitler used,” McCain, said according to RollCall.com.

Since there are Russian-speaking people in Poland, Romania and elsewhere, “there’s plenty of places where he may feel he has to intervene ... on behalf of Russian-speaking people,” he added.

McCain’s comments, however, did not generate the level of public discussion and controversy as Clinton’s because she may seek the presidency in 2016. Clinton, a Democrat, has not yet announced if she will run.

When asked Wednesday her thoughts on the possibility of a woman U.S. president, Clinton would only say: “I believe it will happen. When it happens, how, by whom, we’ll wait and see.”

But noting many countries in the world have had female presidents, she added: “It’s important that we make progress.”

Tom Hogen-Esch, a politics professor at California State Northridge, said Clinton’s initial comments about Hitler sound “a lot like she’s running for president.”

“She’s talking tougher than Obama,” he said by phone Wednesday. “She’s trying to stake out — before any potential rivals do — the ‘I am tough on foreign policy’ position.”

But such rhetoric, he said, only serves to fuel Putin’s paranoia and “unnecessarily turns up the heat.”

Linda Lineback of Newport Beach and her husband, Jim, were among those who attended Clinton’s lecture Wednesday. She said she found Clinton’s speech, which also touched on job creation and the importance of the millennial generation, “very inspiring.”

“I have a daughter, a UCLA graduate, who is 25 years old and also aspires to put a few more cracks in the glass ceiling,” Lineback said. “She and I will definitely vote for Hillary should she run, and I’m hoping she will.”